ゴリラの神から加護された令嬢は王立騎士団で可愛がられる (“The noble girl who is blessed by the Gorilla God is spoiled at the royal knights’ order”)

This is an anime that I watched with a long-time friend over the weekend. Shoutout to M because I know you are reading! We also rewatched Millionaire Detective: Balance Unlimited which I may do a review on eventually, but will focus on the otome anime first.

I won’t be going over the entire plot as there isn’t much and is quite linear.

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Sophia Reeler is 16 years old and attends the royal academy where only the rich and powerful go to. She comes from a noble family from the countryside, so is a bit of a wallflower. People in her country all go through a ritual at age 16 where they receive a blessing from a certain animal, gacha-style (she literally picks a card). Lo and behold, the timid girl becomes blessed by the gorilla with superhuman strength?!

My bad, let me find a better picture:

She feeds a squirrel in the courtyard during lunchtime and talks to it, because she’s a Disney princess and whatnot. This squirrel has the same emerald eyes as our male lead Louis hehehe

Because the Gorilla God’s blessing is so rare (like once per century), Sophia is voluntold to try out to be a knight. She doesn’t want to because at the time this is viewed as very unladylike. In fact, girls attended school for the sole purpose of finding a husband. Sophia tells herself that she will just intentionally fail the process and go back to living her peaceful life.

She meets Isaac Chien, who is blessed by the dog, runs really fast, and is definitely modelled after the golden retriever in terms of looks and personality:

As well as Eddy Feles, who is blessed by the cat and a bit of a tsundere and the BEST AND PRETTIEST BOY OF THIS ENTIRE ANIME

Sophia saves their butts at various times so they two crush on Sophia. However, even though this anime is advertised as a reverse harem/otome anime, at least in the anime adaptation they become her good friends in the end and accept it and support her relationship with Louis, who is a junior leader of the knights. I don’t know if this is canon, but like the adaptation.

From their first meeting, Sophia has a crush on Louis, much harder than he did for her. Eventually, Sophia finds out that Louis can turn into a squirrel, which is his ability and blessing. As the first girl in history to join the knights’ order, Sophia gets showered in a lot of male attention, including Arcient Adler (playboy eagle man)

and the antagonist of this game Leohart, who shares a Saber/Gilgamesh dynamic with Sophia and is obsessed with her. I did not expect Umehara to take on this role as this is not someone I’d associate his voice with. Did I care about his backstory? No.

For female friends, Sophia becomes friends with her former bullies, which is … whatever lol yikes.

Overall, this is a really enjoyable show to watch to unwind or if you want some eye candy. I wouldn’t scrutinize the plot because I don’t think the producers expected us to either. The art is nice. The voice is nice. The story has its mix of daily fluff with slightly more serious plot so you won’t be bored. Sophia learns to come to terms with her abilities in the end and be proud of what she can do. Because of her lived experiences, she is insecure and socially relies on the boys to encourage her and stand up for her, which may be a turnoff for some.

It’s not really a rewatchable show. I wasn’t left with any post-show depression. However, I look back and think, gee I had a good time. Sometimes, we just want our shows to do that.

Art: 8/10

Voice: 7/10

Story: 7/10

Fun: 10/10

Overall: 7.5/10